Do you think it’s an appropriate comparison to link Henry VII with Dany, and Perkin Warbeck (Richard of York’s pretender) with “Aegon”? I mean, Henry VII crossed the channel with the goal of reclaiming the throne for his seemingly exiled house, while Perkin successfully fooled many people into thinking he actually was Richard (which we’ll never know is the truth or not).

Agreed. GRRM doesn’t do one-to-one direct parallels; as he put it in an interview:

goodqueenaly:

I think it’s a false distinction to say “this character is X historical figure, and this character is Y historical figure, and never the twain shall meet”. After all, as I explained yesterday in my reasons for comparing Henry Tudor to Young Aegon, there can certainly be characters who draw from multiple historical sources, or historical figures who have parallels in multiple characters. Is it wrong, for example, to say that Cersei has shades of both Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret of Anjou? To summarize very briefly, Elizabeth was a woman considered very beautiful by her contemporaries, eager in the advancement of her relations, who wed the handsome and gregarious warrior-king who had unseated his mad predecessor but, after his death, faced accusations from her husband’s younger brother that her children were illegitimate; Margaret was an ambitious and scheming queen, whose violent and war-hungry son was rumored to be the product of her adulterous affair with a member of her court, and whose greatest rival was a very powerful northern nobleman who had tried, and failed, to seize control of the government. But traces of Margaret can also be seen in Margaery – a teenager from a fertile and chivalric land, raised by an iron-willed and clever grandmother, married to settle a peace between factions hitherto at war. That doesn’t make Margaret any less of a parallel to Cersei, and if you asked me I’d say the better comparison is probably Cersei, but it’s worthwhile to note the parallels in both, and see how GRRM uses the history in multifaceted and interesting ways.

So, in a similar manner, I think it’s more fair to say that I see parallels in Aegon to both Henry Tudor and the typical false pretender narrative. Indeed, the very words of the ask – a king who “crossed the channel with the goal of reclaiming the throne for his seemingly exiled house” – describe precisely what Aegon’s campaign represents, and how he’ll (probably) be crowned. To believe that Aegon cannot be compared to a true pretender because he’s not really the son of Rhaegar seems to me akin to believing, for example, that Stannis’ accusations of illegitimacy cannot be compared to Richard of Gloucester’s accusations accusations of illegitimacy, because Stannis is actually right and Richard was (probably) presenting a fiction; the inspiration remains when the facts have been changed to suit the narrative. Nothing is 1-1 with history in ASOIAF, and I think it does Aegon’s story a disservice to focus solely on his being false without noting the comparisons to the “real” (that is to say, not fabricated) pretender Henry Tudor, both explicit (the dragon banner, the years in exile as the last scion of a dynasty out of power, the Jasper Tudor-like JonCon, the 1485-esque landing) and hidden (the female-line descent from a legitimated royal bastard branch).

– NFriel

“there’s really no one-for-one character-for-character correspondence. I like to use history to flavor my fantasy, to add texture and verisimilitude, but simply rewriting history with the names changed has no appeal for me. I prefer to re-imagine it all, and take it in new and unexpected directions.”

What this means for those of us who like both history and ASOIAF is that you can’t use the outcome of the Wars of the Roses to predict ASOIAF exactly, either in terms of the meta-plot or at the individual character arc level. 

Instead, what’s going on is that GRRM is remixing history, taking bits and pieces and using them in different ways, so that there are characters who have bits and pieces of historical figures – Robb Stark has been compared to Edward IV (military prodigy, handsome young king who goes back on a betrothal and is betrayed by his own) but GRRM has also mentioned Charles XII of Sweden as an inspiration, and his links to the Red Wedding brings in William Douglas – and there are also historical figures who pop up again and again in the narrative. 

In addition to @goodqueenaly‘s point about the ways in which we can see Margaret d’Anjou or Elizabeth Woodville in multiple characters, I would add that we can very clearly see Richard of Gloucester in both Tyrion and Stannis, but you could also say that Tyrion has similarities to Claudius or Justinian II, and GRRM has made comparisons between Stannis and “Henry VII, Tiberius or Louis XI.”